Read­ing Time: 24 minutes

This is a paper delivered on May 17, 2017, on the occa­sion of the Float­ing Insti­tute of Mis­si­ology (FIM), organ­ized by The Pon­ti­fic­al Mis­sion Soci­et­ies (PMS), Owerri Eccle­si­ast­ic­al Province, at BANPAC Umua­hia, Abia State. 

“A fun­da­ment­al ques­tion for glob­al mis­sion is not only a geo­graph­ic­al mat­ter, encom­passing the whole world, but also a mat­ter of con­tent. The issue is a hol­ist­ic gos­pel for a hol­ist­ic mis­sion.”[1]

Preamble

“The Chris­ti­an Church is the most glob­al reli­gious insti­tu­tion in the world.  To rethink its mis­sion in light of glob­al­iz­a­tion is an imper­at­ive for our time” (R. Schreit­er). Wheth­er they real­ize it or not, glob­al­iz­a­tion impacts mis­sion­ar­ies and the mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies of the Church. The theme giv­en to me by the organ­isers of this con­fer­ence, The Pon­ti­fic­al Mis­sion Soci­et­ies (PMS) is very intriguing. I under­stand my task is to reflect on the sig­ni­fic­ances of the key terms mis­sion and glob­al­iz­a­tion; to under­line the dif­fi­culties and chal­lenges of pro­claim­ing the Gos­pel in a glob­al­ized world; and prob­ably sug­gest ways to ameli­or­ate such dif­fi­culties and to enhance mis­sion­ary and pas­tor­al activ­it­ies in a glob­al­ized and glob­al­iz­ing world. It will be quite impossible to delve into the cur­rent dis­course and debates on the theme of glob­al­iz­a­tion. One would have to exam­ine vast soci­olo­gic­al, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, and reli­gious lit­er­at­ures on the theme of glob­al­iz­a­tion over the past dec­ades since the term first came into usage. How­ever, the hand­writ­ing on the wall can­not be com­pletely avoided. There­fore, I will present a tele­graph­ic dis­course on glob­al­iz­a­tion imme­di­ately after these intro­duct­ory words.

It is the mis­sion of the Church to “pro­claim the Good News (eu-angeli­on) of sal­va­tion, a sal­va­tion that frees man, every man and woman, in every way: spir­itu­ally, mor­ally, cul­tur­ally, eco­nom­ic­ally and socially.”[2] The dis­ciples held the mis­sion of Jesus, and thus, set out from the streets of Jer­u­s­alem to pro­claim to the nations that God has vis­ited his people. Glob­al stat­ist­ics and oth­er obser­va­tions indic­ate the entire globe is exper­i­en­cing ser­i­ous and series of crises. The con­tem­por­ary Nigeri­an soci­ety is exper­i­en­cing deep and troub­ling value dec­ad­ence in its diver­si­fied forms: mor­al, social, cul­tur­al, polit­ic­al, eco­nom­ic, envir­on­ment­al, reli­gious, unequalled and ever-increas­ing cor­rup­tion. Reli­gious exper­i­ence and peace­ful liv­ing in a soci­ety char­ac­ter­ised by these abnor­mal­it­ies is prac­tic­ally impossible. Fur­ther­more, the erup­tion of Inform­a­tion and Com­mu­nic­a­tion Tech­no­logy (ICT) – the new form of the Greek “Aero­pagus” which is uni­fy­ing human­ity and turn­ing it into a “glob­al vil­lage”[3] and with its clear cul­ture of per­missiv­ism is not mak­ing things bet­ter. More so, Sec­u­lar­ism (Sec­u­lar­iz­a­tion) and Glob­al­ism (Glob­al­iz­a­tion) appear to be con­trib­ut­ing to this men­ace. Hence, the quest for intel­li­gent and wise reli­gious lead­ers and mis­sion­ar­ies. As mor­al, cul­tur­al, social and reli­gious agents, mis­sion­ar­ies have no option than to imbibe those qual­it­ies neces­sary to bring our world and her cit­izenry on the right track. These wise, intel­li­gent mis­sion­ary-lead­ers are needed to incul­cate in the masses the cul­ture of ser­vice and ded­ic­a­tion to duty. And to let them under­stand that both ICT and Glob­al­ism are oppor­tun­it­ies for improve­ment and pro­gress not for derail­ment. The top­ic of our delib­er­a­tion is Mis­sion in the con­text of glob­al­iz­a­tion. Expressed in inter­rog­at­ive forms, the top­ic ques­tions the pos­sib­il­ity of mis­sion in the glob­al world. In what ways has glob­al­iz­a­tion affected and con­di­tioned the pro­clam­a­tion and propaga­tion of the Gos­pel mes­sage? In oth­er words, what are the strengths, oppor­tun­it­ies, advant­ages and dis­ad­vant­ages, risks, threats and weak­nesses of glob­al­iz­a­tion to the Chris­ti­an mis­sion? How do we pro­claim the Gos­pel in a world where the inter­net is already a reli­gion? As I was reflect­ing on this top­ic, many oth­er ques­tions came to my mind. One among them is “Ter­ror­ism in the con­text of glob­al­iz­a­tion.” This might sound strange. But if ter­ror­ism flour­ishes in the midst of glob­al­iz­a­tion, then, why should mis­sion not flour­ish in the con­text of glob­al­iz­a­tion too? Why should the Gos­pel not spread like ter­ror­ism? If ter­ror­ists learn and take advant­age of the mod­ern tech­no­lo­gic­al gad­gets, why should mis­sion­ar­ies not do same? What is it that ter­ror­ists do that make them suc­ceed? What is their meth­od­o­logy and mod­us operandi? The key words of our reflec­tion are mis­sion and glob­al­iz­a­tion. And I will begin with globalization.

Globalization

In Glob­al Trans­form­a­tions, Dav­id Held and his com­pan­ions explain that, in its simplist­ic sense, glob­al­iz­a­tion refers to the widen­ing, deep­en­ing and speed­ing up of glob­al inter­con­nec­tion; such a defin­i­tion begs fur­ther elab­or­a­tion. Glob­al­iz­a­tion can be loc­ated on a con­tinuum with the loc­al, nation­al and region­al. At one end of the con­tinuum lie social and eco­nom­ic rela­tions and net­works, which are organ­ized, on a loc­al and/or nation­al basis; at the oth­er end lie social and eco­nom­ic rela­tions and net­works, which crys­tal­lize on the wider scale of region­al and glob­al inter­ac­tions. Glob­al­iz­a­tion can refer to those spa­tial-tem­por­al pro­cesses of change, which under­pin a trans­form­a­tion in the organ­iz­a­tion of human affairs by link­ing togeth­er and expand­ing human activ­ity across regions and con­tin­ents. Without ref­er­ence to such expans­ive spa­tial con­nec­tions, there can be no clear or coher­ent for­mu­la­tion of this term. A sat­is­fact­ory defin­i­tion of glob­al­iz­a­tion must cap­ture each of these ele­ments: extens­ity (stretch­ing), intens­ity, velo­city and impact.[4] Swedish journ­al­ist Thomas Larsson, in his book The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Glob­al­iz­a­tion, states that glob­al­iz­a­tion is the pro­cess of world shrink­age, of dis­tances get­ting short­er, things mov­ing closer. It per­tains to the increas­ing ease with which some­body on one side of the world can inter­act, to mutu­al bene­fit, with some­body on the oth­er side of the world.[5] Paul James defines glob­al­iz­a­tion with a more dir­ect and his­tor­ic­ally con­tex­tu­al­ized emphas­is. Accord­ing to him, “Glob­al­iz­a­tion is the exten­sion of social rela­tions across world-space, defin­ing that world-space in terms of the his­tor­ic­ally vari­able ways that it has been prac­ticed and socially under­stood through chan­ging world-time.”[6] For Zyg­munt Bau­man, “glob­al­iz­a­tion is …a fad word fast turn­ing into a shib­boleth, a magic incant­a­tion, a pass-key meant to unlock the gates to all present and future mysteries.”

Glob­al­isa­tion has become the buzzword of the last two dec­ades. The sud­den increase in the exchange of know­ledge, trade and cap­it­al around the world, driv­en by tech­no­lo­gic­al innov­a­tion, from the inter­net to ship­ping con­tain­ers, thrust the term into the lime­light. Glob­al­isa­tion means increased inter­de­pend­ence between nation­al eco­nom­ies. On the one hand, glob­al­isa­tion is a gradu­al, evol­u­tion­ary pro­cess, which first became vis­ible at the end of the 19^th cen­tury, when the part of world pro­duc­tion that was traded inter­na­tion­ally increased sharply, and mul­tina­tion­al com­pan­ies began to emerge. Although glob­al­iz­a­tion became vis­ible towards the end of the 19^th cen­tury, but the entire pro­cess star­ted dur­ing the 17^th cen­tury. While Some clas­si­fy glob­al­isa­tion as a good thing oth­ers dis­agree. Those who okay glob­al­iz­a­tion insist it “has enriched the world sci­en­tific­ally and cul­tur­ally, and benefited many people eco­nom­ic­ally as well.” On the oth­er hand, the scep­tics are of the opin­ion that it has per­petu­ated inequal­ity in the world rather than redu­cing it. In its diverse forms – cul­tur­al, polit­ic­al, eco­nom­ic, social and reli­gious, glob­al­iz­a­tion con­tin­ues to affect pos­it­ively and neg­at­ively the lives and activ­it­ies of peoples. In his post-syn­od­al apostol­ic exhorta­tion, Eccle­sia in Amer­ica, John Paul II wrote “the eth­ic­al implic­a­tions [of glob­al­iz­a­tion] can be pos­it­ive or neg­at­ive. There is an eco­nom­ic glob­al­iz­a­tion which brings some pos­it­ive con­sequences such as effi­ciency and increased pro­duc­tion and which, with the devel­op­ment of eco­nom­ic links between the dif­fer­ent coun­tries, can help to bring great­er unity among peoples and make pos­sible a bet­ter ser­vice to the human fam­ily. How­ever, if glob­al­iz­a­tion is ruled merely by the laws of the mar­ket applied to suit the power­ful, the con­sequences can­not but be neg­at­ive. These are, for example, the abso­l­u­tiz­ing of the eco­nomy, unem­ploy­ment, the reduc­tion and deteri­or­a­tion of pub­lic ser­vices, the destruc­tion of the envir­on­ment and nat­ur­al resources, the grow­ing dis­tance between rich and poor, unfair com­pet­i­tion which puts the poor nations in a situ­ation of ever increas­ing inferi­or­ity.”[7] In such con­text, what is the fate of the Gos­pel? How should the mis­sion­ary propag­ate the mes­sage? With and in its pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive eth­ic­al and/or mor­al implic­a­tions, how is the mis­sion of the church affected by the phe­nomen­on of glob­al­iz­a­tion? John Paul II describes a much more com­plex con­text than the con­di­tion of Church when Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novar­um. That does not excuse Chris­ti­ans from their respons­ib­il­ity of propagat­ing the Gos­pel in a now glob­al­ized world, or from the pur­suit of the king­dom of God how­ever com­pressed the space-time con­text. How do you for instance, announce the Gos­pel in the European cul­ture where the term “God” is com­pletely omit­ted in the European con­sti­tu­tion, all in an attempt to cre­ate a sec­u­lar soci­ety and in this case, a sec­u­lar Europe? This also is caused by globalism.

Globalization and its many cultures

As indic­ated above, glob­al­iz­a­tion in its diverse forms – cul­tur­al, polit­ic­al, eco­nom­ic, social and reli­gious impacts on the lives of the people. The vari­ous peri­ods of his­tory pos­sess its unique cul­ture and char­ac­ter­ist­ics. The 21^st cen­tury is marked by a strong glob­al elec­tron­ic com­munity, net­worked by the click of a mouse or by simply touch­ing the screen. It is a com­munity that has developed and is still devel­op­ing its own par­tic­u­lar cul­ture. It is a glob­al elec­tron­ic and busi­ness ori­ented cul­ture that is tak­ing the world into a new and soph­ist­ic­ated dimen­sion. It is an inter­net soci­ety. It is an era of inter­net­o­logy[8] with its con­com­it­ant cul­tures. This new cul­ture is gradu­ally pro­du­cing new glob­al cit­izens with dif­fer­ent mind-set and lan­guage. The Gos­pel must be announced to the post­mod­ern gen­er­a­tion with the mod­ern means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion and accord­ing to the new lan­guage of the new glob­al cit­izens. In oth­er words, evan­gel­iz­a­tion must embrace these new cul­tures. Now, embra­cing these new cul­tures involves learn­ing and accept­ing the inter­net lan­guage and the inter­net slang.[9] This glob­al trend has greatly affected and mod­i­fied the tra­di­tion­al meth­od­o­logy of evan­gel­iz­a­tion. Although the new inter­net and social com­mu­nic­a­tion cul­tures seem to have bridged the gap between the urb­an and rur­al set­tings, yet, these must be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion by the Church. Due to glob­al­ism, people and their cul­tures are under­go­ing quick and fast trans­form­a­tions. And as these cul­tures are trans­formed, so also is mor­al­ity and reli­gion trans­formed. Those involved in the work of evan­gel­iz­a­tion should ensure that the reli­gious under­stand­ing and par­tic­u­larly, the Gos­pel is not com­prom­ised by these trans­form­a­tions. How­ever, the Gos­pel should be adap­ted to the pro­cesses of the cur­rent trans­form­a­tions. Next Page

The Church as a globalizing agent[10]

“Glob­al­iz­a­tion and the Mis­sion of the Church stand out as a uniquely pen­et­rat­ing theo­lo­gic­al con­tri­bu­tion to ques­tions sur­round­ing the role of the Church in terms of val­ues that speak to the twenty first cen­tury con­text” (Gasper LoBi­ondo). In the world char­ac­ter­ized by Sans Fron­ti­eres, Plur­al­ism, Fun­da­ment­al­ism, Empire and Power Shift, the Church finds her­self ask­ing many exist­en­tial ques­tions like where are God’s people cur­rently at work in the world? Who are the con­tem­por­ary mis­sion­ar­ies? Who are our neigh­bours and how do we reach them?  What is going on in our world and how should it affect the way we share the Gos­pel with the vari­ous cul­tures? What com­pels us to mis­sion? We should note that the church is and always has been a glob­al­iz­ing force in the world, a force as sig­ni­fic­ant as glob­al cap­it­al­ism and geo-polit­ic­al power. The church has incred­ible resources, organ­iz­a­tions, man­power and insti­tu­tion­al appar­at­us and in dif­fer­ent moments in her his­tory she has played sig­ni­fic­ant roles in the mak­ing of his­tory. Con­sider for instance the recent explo­sion of domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al mis­sion and human­it­ari­an organ­iz­a­tions. While Chris­ti­an mis­sion­ary boards and agen­cies have exis­ted for a long time, mod­ern para-church, human­it­ari­an and mis­sion networks/organizations have mush­roomed in past and recent years. Organ­iz­a­tions such as Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ, Youth with a Mis­sion, World Vis­ion, Focus on the Fam­ily, Com­pas­sion Inter­na­tion­al, the Fuller School of World Mis­sion and the Chris­ti­an Broad­casters Net­work are some of the largest and most vis­ible of Afric­an, Asi­an, European and Amer­ic­an Evan­gel­ic­al and mis­sion­ary organ­iz­a­tions. There can be no doubt that Chris­ti­an mono­the­ism and its fruit (mis­sion­ary move­ments, acts of char­ity and con­cern for the wel­fare of the entire cre­ation), have been a primary driver of glob­al­iz­a­tion through­out his­tory.  From its incep­tion in the mis­sion­ary man­date of Jesus (cf. Matt 28:18–20), Chris­tian­ity has had a glob­al dimen­sion to its mis­sion. Chris­tian­ity is not a spec­tat­or to glob­al­iz­a­tion but one of its agents, one of the forces at work which have exten­ded inter­con­nec­tion between peoples, shared ideas and pro­moted social, polit­ic­al and cul­tur­al links.

Glob­al­iz­a­tion is not lim­ited to the polit­ic­al or eco­nom­ic spheres. There are mul­tiple dis­cip­lines that are glob­al­ized and that are still glob­al­iz­ing, and that exert influ­ence on the world­view of cul­tures and soci­et­ies around the world.  Reli­gion, although not always included as a major play­er in glob­al­iz­a­tion dis­cus­sions, is in fact one area of glob­al soci­ety that has great influ­ence on the world­view of any giv­en cul­ture. A large chal­lenge for the Church is how to integ­rate the influ­ence of the Gos­pel with the oth­er influ­ence car­ri­ers in the glob­al­iz­a­tion pro­cess. If this can be achieved, then, the Gos­pel will have a great­er impact on soci­ety than it has in recent his­tory. This would be a hol­ist­ic mis­sion.[11]

Mission

In his post-resur­rec­tion com­mand, Jesus said to the Elev­en dis­ciples “all author­ity (exousia) in heav­en and on earth has been giv­en to me. Go there­fore and make dis­ciples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Fath­er and of the Son and of the Holy Spir­it, and teach­ing them to obey all that I have com­manded you. Behold, I am with you always, until the end of age” (Matt 28:18–20). This is the best prac­tic­al defin­i­tion-descrip­tion of mis­sion giv­en by Jesus. From the found­a­tion of the total and uni­ver­sal author­ity of the Resur­rec­ted, springs the imper­at­ive of mis­sion to the Gen­tiles. The imper­at­ive “make dis­ciples” encloses the sense and the scope of the mis­sion. In con­trast to the Rabbi who led people to the Torah, Jesus makes him­self the centre of the dis­ciple­ship and as the scope of the mis­sion of the dis­ciples. The expres­sion “all the Gen­tiles” (panta ta ethnē) delin­eates the bound­ary of the mis­sion, which in the light of the Paschal mys­tery, is no more lim­ited only to the Israel­ites (cf. instead Matt 10:5b‑6), but is now exten­ded to the entire uni­verse. By com­mand­ing them to extend their mis­sion to all nations, Jesus enlarged the geo­graphy of the mis­sion. In such glob­al­ised epoch, how did the dis­ciples propag­ate the Gos­pel – the mes­sage of salvation?

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles is the fruit of the mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies of the apostles. In oth­er words, it is an accur­ate doc­u­ment­a­tion of the mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies of the Twelve dis­ciples in a glob­al­ised con­text of the time, giv­en Jesus com­mand to extend the Gos­pel to all eth­nic groups. In this unique doc­u­ment­a­tion, Luke shows how the Gos­pel spread rap­idly from Jer­u­s­alem to the whole Roman Empire, and from its Jew­ish root to the Gen­tile world. One among the pur­poses of Acts of the Apostles is to demon­strate the unstop­pable pro­gress of the Gos­pel. Such pro­gress is both geo­graph­ic­al and eth­nic. That is, it is glob­al with­in its con­text. The author seeks to show how the Mes­sage was propag­ated in a glob­al­ised con­text. His over­rid­ing pur­pose is to demon­strate that the advance of the church is the work of God and the ful­fil­ment of his plan to bring sal­va­tion to the ends of the earth. The church, which com­prised Jews and Gen­tiles, empowered and guided by the Holy Spir­it, rep­res­ents the people of God in the present age. In this evan­gel­ic­al expan­sion, the Twelve, Paul and oth­ers, made use of the then glob­al lan­guages and oppor­tun­it­ies. How?

The Global nature of Acts 2

On this day, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spir­it, and they began to speak in oth­er tongues/languages (glōs­sais) as the Spir­it enabled them (Acts 2:4). …each one heard them speak­ing in his own lan­guage (Acts 2:6). The people wondered and ques­tioned …how is it that each one of us hears them in our own nat­ive lan­guage – dialektos? (Acts 2:8). Again, they said …we hear them speak­ing in our own tongues/languages (glōs­sais) about the great deeds God has done (Acts 2:11). What happened in Acts 2 is not a form of abracadabra or hocus-pocus. It was a ful­fil­ment of Jesus’ prom­ise to the apostles as recor­ded in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8. How should the apostles bear wit­ness in the con­text of glob­al­ized Jer­u­s­alem? The mir­acle in Acts 2 does not con­sist in the fact that the apostles mes­mer­ized their audi­ence by speak­ing in for­eign lan­guages or that they uttered inde­cipher­able expres­sions. On the con­trary, the mir­acle con­sists in the fact that as they spoke, people of vari­ous tongues (lan­guages) and from vari­ous nations who gathered in Jer­u­s­alem under­stood them clearly in their own nat­ive lan­guages (dia­lects). That is, they received the word of God in their own lan­guages. This was the mir­acle. The mir­acle of the pro­clam­a­tion and spread­ing of the Gos­pel mes­sage, the mes­sage of sal­va­tion. The apostles did not speak in order to dis­play their capa­city to impress the people, or to make them­selves cen­ter of atten­tion and attrac­tion. What was at the cen­ter was not their capa­city to speak lan­guages they nev­er stud­ied, but the fear­less pro­clam­a­tion of the Word of God to all, and the Holy Spir­it made it pos­sible that they do that in lan­guages they nev­er stud­ied, but which were under­stood by those who spoke those lan­guages and dia­lects. The com­mand to pro­claim the Gos­pel to all nations is clearly exhib­ited in this event.

There­fore, the book of Acts does not recount primar­ily the suc­cess of the “enthu­si­ast­ic” mani­fest­a­tions but the suc­cess of the mes­sage of the Gos­pel stim­u­lated and accom­pan­ied by the Holy Spir­it. Giv­en the glob­al­ised nature of Jer­u­s­alem, the Holy Spir­it empowered the apostles to make known to the many nations, the mes­sage of sal­va­tion. What happened in Acts 2 is not glos­so­lalia but speak­ing in oth­er tongues, where by tongues is meant lan­guages. While glos­so­lalia is speak­ing in tongues in the sense of an ecstat­ic or incom­pre­hens­ible speech, the incid­ent of Acts 2 is quite dif­fer­ent. We can also say that the apostles spoke in tongues where by tongues, is meant lan­guages, the lan­guages of those present. In this sense, the Holy Spir­it devised a meth­od for pro­claim­ing the Gos­pel in the then glob­al­ized world. As the text says, those present under­stood the lan­guages the apostles spoke. This is quite dif­fer­ent from the present day emo­tion­al hys­teria of the Cha­ris­mat­ics and the Pente­cost­als, which does not in any way bring about sol­id and mature faith. The des­cent of the Power from on high dis­pelled the apostles’ fear, and instilled in them the spir­it of cour­age and the zeal to announce the deeds of God. Let us not for­get that the only reas­on for the gift of the Holy Spir­it on these apostles was to pro­claim without fear or favour the great deeds God has done in and through Jesus the Christ (Acts 2:11). Glob­al­isa­tion or any oth­er phe­nomen­on, should not hamper this mandate.

Mission and ICT

Our cen­tury is char­ac­ter­ized by the mass media or means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion, and we can­not do without these means. The devel­op­ment of the inform­a­tion tech­no­logy gave the people great­er and faster access to inform­a­tion. Rap­id flow of inform­a­tion allowed great­er aware­ness of people on vari­ous ideas, cul­tures, tech­no­lo­gies and events that affect the glob­al com­munity. ICT includes a wide range of hard­ware and soft­ware, and sup­port­ive know­ledge and ideas. With­in few years, the truly ignor­ant will no longer be those without aca­dem­ic cer­ti­fic­ates, but the ICT illit­er­ates. Wheth­er we like it or not, wheth­er we believe it or not, wheth­er we accept it or not, ICT has deeply con­di­tioned, is con­di­tion­ing and in fact, will con­tin­ue to con­di­tion our exist­ence, includ­ing the spread­ing of the Gos­pel. Even the Church accepts and acknow­ledges that these means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion (the inter­net, the press, radio, tele­vi­sion and oth­ers), “…influ­ence not merely single indi­vidu­als but the very masses and even the whole of human soci­ety.”[12]

In this case, what do we do? ICT is a new form of the Greek “Areo­pagus” (a hill in Athens where the supreme tribunal met) in our world. What is this Areo­pagus? After pro­claim­ing the Word of God in many places, Paul went to the city of Athens, where he vis­ited the Areo­pagus^[13] and pro­claimed the Good News in lan­guage appro­pri­ate to and under­stand­able in those sur­round­ings.^[14] The means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion have become so import­ant as to be for many the chief means of inform­a­tion and edu­ca­tion, of guid­ance and inspir­a­tion in their beha­viour as indi­vidu­als, fam­il­ies and with­in soci­ety at large. In par­tic­u­lar, the young­er gen­er­a­tion is grow­ing up in a world con­di­tioned by the mass media. ICT is a “new cul­ture” which involves new ways of com­mu­nic­at­ing, with new lan­guages, new tech­niques and a new psy­cho­logy. Every mis­sion­ary is sup­posed to be at home with these new lan­guages and tech­niques of communication.

Social Networking[15]

The theme of mis­sion and mis­sion in the con­text of glob­al­iz­a­tion can­not be con­cluded without ref­er­ence to the social net­work­ing sites and applic­a­tions. Again, it might even be an over­sight for a ser­i­ous and com­mit­ted mis­sion­ary to ignore this glob­al and ever-grow­ing ways of com­mu­nic­a­tion. Gran­ted there are pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive sides of these sites and applic­a­tions, but we can­not because of the neg­at­ive use or effect, ignore the immense con­tri­bu­tions of these sources to the pro­clam­a­tion and dif­fu­sion of the Gos­pel. Wis­dom and dis­cern­ment is all that are required on the part of those concerned.

Top social networking sites

Below are the graphs of the top social net­work­ing sites in the world as at the time of writ­ing this paper. As could be observed, Face­book is lead­ing the pack with a huge mar­gin in front of You­tube. Then there is anoth­er gap of sim­il­ar size to Ins­tagram on the third place.

  Again, we can also use the visu­al size to explain fur­ther the immens­ity of these social net­work­ing sites. On the visu­al graph, we find the three large circles dom­in­at­ing the rest. Only Twit­ter and Red­dit seem to come close to the top three. How­ever, in Rus­sia VK has a huge pen­et­ra­tion, dom­in­at­ing the Rus­si­an speak­ing world as Face­book does glob­ally. The work of evan­gel­iz­a­tion can­not ignore these avenues.

Top social networking applications

With the grow­ing pop­ular­ity of mobile social net­work­ing, it is also import­ant to glance at the list of some glob­al lead­ing social applic­a­tions. These applic­a­tions are in fierce com­pet­i­tion with the main social sites already giv­en above. The pic­ture here is a bit dif­fer­ent if we look at the brand names. What­s­App and Mes­sen­ger are in a close race for the top pos­i­tion. Both applic­a­tions are owned by Face­book. Hence, the com­pet­i­tion may not be as fierce as between com­pletely sep­ar­ate com­pan­ies. Then, there is a lot of Asi­an applic­a­tions and then on the sixth spot is Ins­tagram, also owned by Facebook.

These sites and applic­a­tions are of Amer­ic­an, European and Asi­an ori­gins. Where is Africa? Where is the Church in Africa? Where is the Church in Niger­ia? Where is the Church in Igbo land? Where is the Church in Owerri Eccle­si­ast­ic­al Province? The West­ern and Asi­an Churches have cus­tom­ized applic­a­tions and soft­ware for use in the Church. How many of these applic­a­tions and soft­ware do we have in Africa, in Niger­ia, in Igbo­land and in our Province? Next page

Facilities and spirit of the global system

In the words of Samuel Esco­bar, Chris­ti­ans oper­at­ing in the glob­al world should know how to use the facil­it­ies of the glob­al sys­tem without being caught by the spir­it of the sys­tem itself. This is a great warn­ing. It is equi­val­ent to Jesus’ warn­ing to the dis­ciples that they are in the world but not of the world (cf. John 17:15–16). What this means is that the use of ICT requires dis­cern­ment. One of the side effects of ICT is extreme indi­vidu­al­ism and the elim­in­a­tion of per­son­al con­tact. The first meth­od of effect­ive mis­sion is to under­stand and be cap­tiv­ated with the mis­sion of Jesus, to pro­claim the Gos­pel to the entire world.[16] While avail­ing them­selves of the mod­ern means of com­mu­nic­a­tion, mis­sion­ar­ies should be aware of this fact of mak­ing the salvif­ic mes­sage avail­able to all. The Church her­self is aware of the risk of these means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion. The Church does not doubt the immense con­tri­bu­tions of ICT because they con­trib­ute greatly to the con­sol­id­a­tion of the king­dom of God. Again, the Church knows it is her oblig­a­tion to pro­claim the Gos­pel, and she believes this task entails the use of the social com­mu­nic­a­tion to announce the good news of sal­va­tion and to teach men how to make prop­er use of them. The ICT should be prop­erly employed. Those who use them for evan­gel­iz­a­tion should know the prin­ciples of the mor­al order. They should form a cor­rect con­science on the use of these social net­works.[17] While they use the facil­it­ies of glob­al­iz­a­tion, they should guide against the spir­it of the glob­al system.

Effective planning

There is no aspect of human exist­ence that does not require adequate and effect­ive plan­ning. Most people are not suc­cess­ful in life because their desire to be suc­cess­ful is not accom­pan­ied by an effect­ive plan­ning. The fail­ure to plan is to have planned to fail. The first step towards a suc­cess­ful mis­sion­ary activ­ity is effect­ive plan­ning. God planned cre­ation. And Jesus planned his mis­sion. The apostles planned their mis­sion too. Even Paul him­self planned his mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies (cf. for instance Acts 19:21). There­fore, we must also plan our own mis­sion. Con­cern­ing plan­ning, Jesus asks “which of you, intend­ing to build a tower, does not first sit down and estim­ate the cost, to see wheth­er he has enough to com­plete it?” (Luke 14:28). With the advent of glob­al­iz­a­tion, mis­sion­ar­ies should review their mis­sion­ary plan to suit the new envir­on­ment. The Church must be flex­ible with her meth­ods to meet the needs of the time. How­ever, in doing so, care should be taken not to com­prom­ise the Gos­pel mes­sage. Effect­ive plan­ning means read­ing the hand writ­ing on the wall. And the hand writ­ing says there is ser­i­ous evol­u­tion and total over­haul­ing going on.

Part of the effect­ive plan­ning is the pro­vi­sion of adequate and effect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion centres for the dif­fu­sion of the Gos­pel mes­sage, mor­als and val­ues. Cath­ol­ic Church and espe­cially Owerri Eccle­si­ast­ic­al Province is lag­ging behind in this regard. Although some of the Dio­ceses have their weekly journ­als[18], but is it enough? It should be a mat­ter of great con­cern that there is no single Cath­ol­ic radio or tele­vi­sion sta­tion in the entire Province. Even the web sites[19] of the Dio­ceses are not won­der­ful. Most of them are not func­tion­al. And almost none is updated. Some have communications/media centres.[20] But are they equipped and func­tion­al? The truth is that Cath­ol­ic Church is not well immersed in the mod­ern means of com­mu­nic­a­tion. Oth­er micro Churches, and organ­iz­a­tions and even indi­vidu­als have power­ful radio and tele­vi­sion sta­tions through which they pro­mote their products and propag­ate their seem­ingly good news. But it appears the Cath­ol­ic Church in Africa and par­tic­u­larly, in Niger­ia, is not yet con­scious of the changed and chan­ging nature of these realities.

Globalized mind and approach

By defin­i­tion, mind­set is the habitu­al or char­ac­ter­ist­ic men­tal atti­tude that determ­ines how a per­son inter­prets and responds to situ­ations. Glob­al­iz­a­tion and ICT have no prob­lems in them­selves. The prob­lem is with those who make use of them. Address­ing the Cor­inthi­an Chris­ti­ans, Paul said “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some” (1Cor 9:22). Becom­ing all things does not mean or imply becom­ing like all people. It is only a neces­sary tech­nique to reach, con­vince and win oth­ers over. By becom­ing all things to all people, Paul devised a means of bring­ing across the Gos­pel to every­one, mak­ing him­self part of that oth­ers’ giv­en con­di­tion. Applied to our con­text, becom­ing all things is tak­ing advant­age of glob­al­iz­a­tion and ensure the mes­sage of sal­va­tion is con­tinu­ously regen­er­ated in the lives of people. Ours is a world that con­stantly presents new chal­lenges and our soci­ety trans­itions from one glob­al com­munity to anoth­er. Mis­sion­ar­ies should become all things by immers­ing them­selves into this con­stant change and glob­al trans­itions. As dis­ciples, mis­sion­ar­ies should seek for new and bet­ter oppor­tun­it­ies to announce the Gos­pel. They should have glob­al­ized mind and glob­al­ized approach.

Conclusion[21]

Glob­al­iz­a­tion is not just a fad or a media buzzword, but an accur­ate descrip­tion of a rel­at­ively recent change in the way nations, states, the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem of states, indi­vidu­als, and human­kind as a whole inter­act with one anoth­er and how they con­sciously under­stand them­selves. It describes both an object­ive set of rela­tion­ships and a sub­ject­ive aware­ness of them. The rapid­ity and massive­ness of these new dynam­ics threaten the iden­tity of humans both as groups and as indi­vidu­als. At the same time, they make pos­sible the par­ti­cip­a­tion of ever great­er num­bers of people in their own devel­op­ment, not only eco­nom­ic­ally and polit­ic­ally but also cul­tur­ally, spir­itu­ally and reli­giously. Glob­al­iz­a­tion pro­motes free­dom and demo­cracy with the aid of new inform­a­tion tech­no­logy which were unavail­able dec­ades ago. While there is a devel­op­ing glob­al cul­ture, glob­al­iz­a­tion is not neces­sar­ily homo­gen­iz­ing; it also pro­motes and appre­ci­ates diversity. For Chris­ti­ans and to Chris­ti­ans, this new con­text poses chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies. Among oth­er chal­lenges, it chal­lenges us to com­mu­nic­ate Chris­ti­an prin­ciples in a form that is per­suas­ive and that leads to the con­ver­sion of human hearts. It chal­lenges us to exem­pli­fy in the life of the insti­tu­tion­al Church the justice rep­res­en­ted and preached by the Church.

At the same time, glob­al­iz­a­tion offers new oppor­tun­it­ies for the Church’s mis­sion. The fas­cin­at­ing new com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies offer the greatest pos­sib­il­ity of all time to take the Gos­pel to every nook and cranny of the uni­verse. The fun­da­ment­al mis­sion of the Church “to give wit­ness to the truth, to res­cue and not to sit in judg­ment, to serve and not to be served”, to be the bear­er of hope and “light for all nations”[22], should be facil­it­ated by the latest com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies of glob­al­iz­a­tion. For some Chris­ti­ans, glob­al­iz­a­tion rep­res­ents noth­ing less than lay­ing the most recent brick atop an ever grow­ing Tower of Babel. For oth­ers, it is a sign, not unlike the appear­ance of a new strand of col­our in a rain­bow – a sign of God’s plan to reach the entire world with his liv­ing Word. To com­pre­hend glob­al­iz­a­tion bet­ter, Chris­ti­ans must move bey­ond the pop­u­lar rhet­or­ics of glob­al­mania and glob­al­pho­bia. If “cul­tures, eco­nom­ies, and polit­ics appear to merge across the globe through the rap­id exchange of inform­a­tion, ideas, and know­ledge, and the invest­ment strategies of glob­al cor­por­a­tions”[23], then, the mis­sion of the Church of dis­sem­in­at­ing the Gos­pel mes­sage should not be left out in this trend of glob­al­ized era of inform­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion. As explained above, the Church recog­nizes the indis­pens­ab­il­ity of ICT in the pro­clam­a­tion of the Gos­pel. How­ever, she laments the side effects. The Church fears that if people’s “minds are ill dis­posed, and if good will is lack­ing, the out­pour­ing of tech­no­logy may pro­duce an oppos­ite effect, so that there is less under­stand­ing and more dis­cord, and as a res­ult, evils are mul­ti­plied.”[24] The glob­al­ized forms of com­mu­nic­a­tion should not be evaded. Rather, those who use these means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion should know how to avert the danger out­lined above by the Church.

It is indis­put­able that fif­teenth-cen­tury Jesuits and Domin­ic­ans were har­bingers not just of Cath­ol­ic Chris­tian­ity, but of European Christen­dom and its Con­quista­dors and that nine­teenth-cen­tury Prot­est­ant mis­sion­ar­ies did not just take up their Bibles, but also their pith hel­mets as they trav­elled to far reaches of the earth under the shad­ow of the Uni­on. The Chris­ti­an story has been mixed with oth­er stor­ies and some­times appro­pri­ated for fallen pur­poses. In our bid to take advant­age of the glob­al resources, we must con­sider the pos­sib­il­ity of mixed mes­sages and false stor­ies we may be send­ing the world.  One might ask the present gen­er­a­tion, for instance, about the nature of the gos­pel mes­sage being com­mu­nic­ated in widely-touted films depict­ing the gos­pel story of Jesus. It is cause for cel­eb­ra­tion that these films are reach­ing more people with the gos­pel than ever before and in word-for-word gos­pel trans­la­tions into loc­al lan­guages. We must also reflect on the fact that the tech­no­logy and tech­nique that make such mul­ti­me­dia gos­pel exper­i­ences pos­sible are also part of the story being com­mu­nic­ated. When reli­ance on tech­no­logy and tech­nique are linked, as they usu­ally are, with what Samuel Esco­bar has called “mana­geri­al mis­si­ology,” the story we tell can quickly become dis­tor­ted, lead­ing to what he calls a “deper­son­al­iz­a­tion” of people into “unreached tar­gets” in order to be able to report stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant “decisions for Christ” to fund­ing agencies.

Per­haps the real under­ly­ing danger is that while we pro­claim one gos­pel story, we may very well be liv­ing anoth­er and those to whom we wit­ness can­not always tell the dif­fer­ence between them.[25]  As Esco­bar reminds us, “a great chal­lenge to Chris­ti­an mis­sion­ar­ies in the com­ing years will be how to remain first and fore­most mes­sen­gers of Jesus Christ and not just har­bingers of the new glob­al­iz­a­tion pro­cess.  They will have to use the facil­it­ies of the sys­tem without being caught by the spir­it of the sys­tem. This is a ques­tion not only for mis­sion­ar­ies from afflu­ent soci­et­ies but also for those from poorer soci­et­ies who are temp­ted some­times to rely mainly on the eco­nom­ic facil­it­ies and the tech­nic­al instru­ments avail­able to them.”[26] Our mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies must pen­et­rate and per­meate those areas that mould the world­view of cul­tures and soci­et­ies. Out­side the Church (Reli­gion), our pro­clam­a­tion should also touch such areas as Arts, Media, Edu­ca­tion, Fam­ily, Gov­ern­ment, polit­ics, and Busi­ness-Fin­ance. If our mis­sion is lim­ited only to the reli­gious sphere, then, we shall have “…less influ­ence in a soci­ety because we only have an impact on one aspect of the mech­an­ism that influ­ences the think­ing in the soci­ety”[27] thanks to globalization.

Cheap Christianity

One of the adverse effects and weak­nesses of glob­al­iz­a­tion on the mis­sion of the Church is weak Chris­tian­ity. What is this weak Chris­tian­ity? I will respond to this ques­tion with a cita­tion from Ernst M. Con­radie. In response to glob­al­iz­a­tion, Chris­ti­an mis­sion­ar­ies may wish to mar­ket their par­tic­u­lar brand of Chris­tian­ity. They would sense the oppor­tun­it­ies offered by glob­al­isa­tion in terms of com­mu­nic­a­tion, audio-visu­al aids and so forth. They would thus become some­thing like sales agents on behalf of Jesus and com­pany. If so, they would need to recog­nise that there is indeed a huge mar­ket for cheap reli­gious products (a warm spir­itu­al­ity would sell very well indeed, much bet­ter than calls for dis­ciple­ship, or a bloody cross), but only a small niche mar­ket for products where the cost of dis­ciple­ship is high. On the Afric­an con­tin­ent, this align­ment between Chris­tian­ity and glob­al­isa­tion has become extremely pop­u­lar. Preach­ing the gos­pel of prosper­ity seems to be highly attract­ive and offers a tan­gible real­ised eschat­o­logy: If you give your best to the Lord, the Lord will richly bless you! The life­style of pas­tors and the ordained class should demon­strate the valid­ity of the claim that going to church is good for busi­ness, which may well be true as you will meet oth­er aspir­ing busi­ness lead­ers there on neut­ral grounds. In this way, reli­gion legit­im­ises the upward social mobil­ity of the lower middle class and the con­sumer­ist desires of every­one.[28] The implic­a­tion of these words is that glob­al­iz­a­tion is not really the most dan­ger­ous threats to the mis­sion. The worst danger is the life­style of mis­sion­ar­ies and Chris­ti­an lead­ers them­selves. Like proph­et Mala­chi said, the lips of reli­gious lead­ers, espe­cially the ordained class should guard know­ledge, and people should seek instruc­tion from their mouth, for they are the mes­sen­gers of ’āḏōnāy ṣeḇā’ȏṯ (Mal 2:7). Unfor­tu­nately, with cheap Chris­tian­ity and the unquench­able desire to be fam­ous and rich, the same reli­gious lead­ers have turned aside from the way; caused many faith­ful to stumble by their instruc­tions; cor­rup­ted the cov­en­ant…, says ’āḏōnāy ṣeḇā’ȏṯ (Mal 2:8). This derail­ment should not be attrib­uted to glob­al­iz­a­tion, but to the selfish­ness and the inad­equacy of those involved with the propaga­tion of the Gos­pel and the use of glob­al systems.

Without doubt, we are now liv­ing in an age where a new world cul­ture is being man­u­fac­tured after the wish of god­less men and women. The con­tem­por­ary age is a world of tech­no­lo­gic­al cul­tures that are in a world­wide com­pet­i­tion with one anoth­er. And in this com­pet­i­tion-con­front­a­tion, the Gos­pel and reli­gious val­ues seem to be at the receiv­ing ends. Sec­u­lar­ism has taken its per­man­ent res­id­ence in Europe and in most parts of Amer­ica. As I noted above, a proof of this is the elim­in­a­tion and omis­sion of God in the European con­sti­tu­tion. Although not yet well pro­nounced, sec­u­lar­ism is gradu­ally creep­ing into Africa and into Niger­ia. This is sum­mar­ized by someone with the term ‘Churchian­ity.’[29] Churchian­ity is a form of reli­gion cre­ated after oth­er sources oth­er than the Bible. In oth­er words, churchian­ity is a devi­ation from Chris­tian­ity. While Chris­ti­ans are mis­sion­ar­ies, churchi­ans are pro­fes­sion­als who pro­mote their pro­fes­sions instead of the Gos­pel. Churchi­ans are busi­ness tycoons who have the semb­lance of Chris­ti­ans. This also is a con­sequence of glob­al­ism, or rather, the abuse of globalism.

The post-resur­rec­tion com­mand to “go and make dis­ciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:19) is all inclus­ive. By all-inclus­ive is meant tak­ing the mes­sage to every­one and mak­ing use of the avail­able means at the time and in the place. The dis­ciples under­took their mis­sion in a glob­al world pro­duced by the expan­sion of the Roman world. Today, the con­tem­por­ary dis­ciples must ful­fil their own mis­sion in a glob­al world pro­duced by the expan­sion of com­merce and Inform­a­tion-tech­no­logy (Info-Tech). If we desire to be pro­duct­ive mes­sen­gers of the Gos­pel, we must con­tinu­ally align ourselves with the meta­morph­osed and meta­morph­os­ing world. It is only through this way that we can be able to pro­duce the most fruit pos­sible to the glory of God. Many of the post­mod­ern gen­er­a­tion are spir­itu­ally sterile. Mis­sion­ar­ies must know how to use the glob­al sys­tems to inject new life into them. Finally, des­pite the chal­lenges and dif­fi­culties, mis­sion is still pos­sible in a glob­al­ized and glob­al­iz­ing world. Sha­lom!

Uchenna C. Okpalaunegbu

[1] Howard A. Snyder, Glob­al Good News: Mis­sion in a New Con­text (Abing­don Press, 2001), p. 62; Neil J. Ormerod – Shane Clifton, Glob­al­iz­a­tion and the Mis­sion of the Church (2011).

[2] II Spe­cial Assembly for Africa: “The Church in Africa in Ser­vice to Recon­cili­ation, Justice and Peace”, Lin­ea­menta, n.53.

[3] Cf. John Paul II, Redemt­or­is Missio (Decem­ber 7, 1990), n. 37.

[4] Dav­id Held – Dav­id Gold­blatt – Anthony McGrew, et al., Glob­al Trans­form­a­tions (Polity Press, Cam­bridge 1999).

[5] Thomas Lar­son, The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Glob­al­iz­a­tion (Cato Insti­tute, Wash­ing­ton D.C 2001), p. 9.

[6] Paul James, “Arguing Glob­al­iz­a­tions: Pro­pos­i­tions Towards an Invest­ig­a­tion of Glob­al Form­a­tion” in Glob­al­iz­a­tion II (2005), pp. 193–209.

[7] John Paul II, Post-syn­od­al Apostol­ic Exhorta­tion, Eccle­sia in Amer­ica (Feb­ru­ary 4, 1999), n. 33.

[8] Inter­net­o­logy is the fusion of internet-network-technology.

[9] Inter­net lan­guage and slang are col­lec­tion of words and expres­sions cre­ated and pop­ular­ised by inter­net users.

[10] Lausanne Com­mit­tee for World Evan­gel­iz­a­tion, Glob­al­iz­a­tion and the Gos­pel: Rethink­ing Mis­sion in the Con­tem­por­ary World in Lausanne Occa­sion­al Paper, n. 30, p. 36.

[11] Lausanne Com­mit­tee for World Evan­gel­iz­a­tion, p. 47

[12] Vat­ic­an Coun­cil II, Decree on the Means of Social Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Inter Miri­fica (Decem­ber 4, 1963), n. 1.

[13] Dur­ing this peri­od, Areo­pagus rep­res­en­ted the cul­tur­al centre of the learned people of Athens. Today, it might be taken as the sym­bol of the new sec­tors in which the Good News must be proclaimed.

[14] Cf. Acts 17:22–31.

[15] https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/.

[16] Roger E. Dick­son, Dick­son Bib­lic­al Research Lib­rary (Afric­an Inter­na­tion­al Mis­sions, Hutchin­son – KN 2013), pp. 1100–1101.

[17] Inter Miri­fica, nn. 2–5.

[18] The Lead­er (Owerri Arch­diocese); Lumen (Umua­hia); For­um (Orlu); the Sage News­pa­per (Okig­we); Guide (Ahiara); and the Rex News­pa­per (Aba). The online ver­sions of these Journ­als are not wonderful.

[19] http://www.catholicdioceseofaba.org/; http://www.ahiaradiocese.org/ – as at Sat­urday, May 13, 2017, this site is dormant; once you open it, you will see the notice, “account sus­pen­ded. This account has been sus­pen­ded. Con­tact your host­ing pro­vider for more inform­a­tion”; http://catholicdioceseokigwe.org/; http://orludiocese.org/wordpress/; http://www.owarch.org/;  http://umuahiadiocese.org/. This web­site is not functional.

[20] For instance, Owerri Arch­diocese has an IT centre loc­ated at n. 5 Orlu road, Owerri. This is taken from http://www.owarch.org/. I have not been to this place, so, I can­not cer­ti­fy if it is func­tion­al or not.

[21] Cf. T. How­land Sanks, “Glob­al­iz­a­tion and the Church’s Social Mis­sion” in Theo­lo­gic­al Stud­ies 60 (1999), pp. 650–651.

[22] Vat­ic­an Coun­cil II, Gaud­i­um et Spes, n. 3.

[23] Dav­id Held et al., A Glob­al­iz­ing World? Cul­ture, Eco­nom­ics, and Polit­ics, p. 6.

[24] Vat­ic­an Coun­cil II, Pas­tor­al Instruc­tion on the Means of Social Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Com­mu­nio et Pro­gressio (Janu­ary 29, 1971), n. 9.

[25] Lausanne Com­mit­tee for World Evan­gel­iz­a­tion, pp.37–42.

[26] Samuel Esco­bar Aguirre, The New Glob­al Mis­sion: The Gos­pel from Every­where to Every­one (Inter­Varsity Press, 2003), p. 63.

[27] Lausanne Com­mit­tee for World Evan­gel­iz­a­tion, p. 48.

[28] Ernst M. Con­radie, Mis­sion in a Glob­al­ised World: A New Vis­ion of Chris­ti­an Dis­ciple­ship. A Key­note address delivered at the con­fer­ence of the Aus­trali­an Asso­ci­ation for Mis­sion Stud­ies (AAMS), Sydney, Septem­ber 22–27, 2011, p. 5.

[29] Roger E. Dick­son, Dick­son Bib­lic­al Research Lib­rary, p. 1770–1774.

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